Argos MyTablet Software, Performance and Camera

Summary

Our Score

Argos MyTablet tablet - Software

On the whole, the MyTablet serves up a recognizable Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean experience. Google Play access, Google Now and largely all the features you’d expect to see on Jelly Bean tablet.

Argos and Bush have tweaked the UI slightly but unlike the Hudl there are no dedicated Argos buttons or widgets littering the homescreens trying to lure you into buying some garden furniture or more Bush electronics.

The only feature that really stands out is the screen capture button sitting alongside the home button. You can take it off in the settings menu, but it seems like an odd thing to include in the first place.

With 8GB of storage to play with it only takes couple of big games to
see the internal memory dwindle down so it would probably be wise to invest in a microSD card, which bumps up the cost.

Argos MyTablet tablet- Apps

The Bush tablet has 19 apps pre-installed apps and ranges from catch-up services like iPlayer and ITV Player to games like Angry Birds and lesser known titles like Jupingo. Oddly, you will need to install Google Play apps and Google Chrome which usually comes as standard on most Android tablets.

These are all apps you can download easily from the Google Play Store for free and there’s no additional services like Tesco's own Blinkbox to add some unique content.

You do, of course, get the Argos app which you can use to shop, locate your nearest store and do pretty much everything you can do with the Android app on any other tablet. One thing you can’t do is use the app in landscape mode which seems like an oversight.

To help you get better acquainted with the MyTablet, Argos has included the Bush Support app that walks you through the different aspects of the tablet. It's here you can register your device, access the user guide, read through the Help FAQs and run a series of tests on the tablet.You can analyse the screen for dead pixels, make sure the cameras work and even check the accelerometer.

The way all of this information is presented is far from user-friendly and for someone who has never used a tablet before could seem daunting. Tesco certainly do a better job of it on the start-up wizard of the Hudl.

Argos MyTablet tablet - Performance

Powering the MyTablet is a dual-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz supported by 1GB of RAM. The results are far from slick. Swiping through homescreens and launching applications is sluggish. It’s fine for browsing, checking emails and dipping in and out of Facebook and Twitter and manages to handle video streaming reasonably well. It even manages to run the taxing Real Racing 3. When you are running several demanding apps at once, though, it begins to show signs of a strain.

The benchmarks back up the average overall performance. It scored 562 in Geekbench 3, some way off the 1,360 the Tesco Hudl and 2,672 the Nexus 7 2 manages. In the 3D Mark Ice Storm test the MyTablet scores a 2854, again falling below the Hudl (3,560) and the Nexus 7 2 (11,672). A decent browsing performance is backed up by the 480 Peacekeeper benchmark score putting it just below the Nexus 7 (489) although higher than the Hudl (227).

In terms of sound quality the small speaker on the back is disappointing. Music sounds tinny and it struggles for power at higher volumes. It’s worse for streaming video where even at top volume you need to hold the tablet up your ear to hear it at times.

Argos MyTablet tablet - Camera

You can take photos with
your MyTablet but we would strongly advise not making a habit of it. With a
2-megapixel main camera and 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera at your
disposal results are average at best.

2-megapixel resolution photo taken in auto mode with 3x zoom show the blurriness and low quality

The camera has the
same Auto and Night modes as the Tesco Hudl tablet and you have the
ability to select from preset brightness modes.

Images on the
whole are noisy, lack vibrancy, colour accuracy and pretty much
anything else you’d associate with good photos. The inability to focus
really hampers results as well. It’s the same for 720p video. Footage is grainy and lacklustre.

It
doesn’t get much better with the front-facing camera. It’s a blurry mess, and most smartphones would do a better job for Skype video
calls and taking selfies.